Berkeleyan
News Briefs
13 February 2008
Panel to discuss the 44th president and the courts
The next event in the ongoing series "Choosing the President: Campaigning and Governing in War and Peace" will focus on "The Next President and the Courts." The event, to be held Thursday, Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. in Booth Auditorium at Boalt Hall, is co-sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Boalt Hall School of Law.
Panelists will include Berkeley Professor of Law Jesse Choper; Susan Estrich, professor of law and political science at the University of Southern California; and William Kelley, associate professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and former Deputy White House Counsel. The moderator will be John Yoo, professor of law at Boalt Hall.
New American Cultures prizes for faculty and students
Three American Cultures (AC) prizes are being introduced this semester to recognize the ways in which the requirement's curriculum has become a center of pedagogical distinction as well as the educational excellence demonstrated by students in these courses. The Faculty Innovation in Teaching Award acknowledges innovative pedagogical practices that focus on the particularities of the AC requirement. All members of the Academic Senate, as well as non-Senate faculty/instructors with continuing appointments, are eligible to apply. The recipient will receive a $2,500 award from the campus and will be honored at a public ceremony. Two student prizes will recognize scholarship that promotes the understanding of race, ethnicity, and culture.
Applications should be submitted via e-mail to victoriarobbi@berkeley.edu by March 17. To review the submission guidelines, visit americancultures.berkeley.edu.
Advance notice of Bancroft Library's summer closing
This summer, the Bancroft Library will return to its original location, the Doe Library Annex, from its temporary quarters in downtown Berkeley. From May 23 to sometime in the fall semester the Bancroft will be closed to the public in order to move its collections. Other Bancroft Library programs affected by the move include the Mark Twain Papers and Project, the Regional Oral History Office, the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri, and the University Archives.
For more information and updates about the move, visit bancroft.berkeley.edu/info/move or phone 642-3781.
Grant funding available for 'teaching across the arts'
The Arts Research Center will award curriculum-development grants of $750 to graduate-student instructors (GSIs) or faculty to develop and teach courses in the 2008-09 academic year that can be defined as "teaching across the arts." Courses that deal with intersections and disjunctions between different media and/or modes of representation, that address general critical or theoretical frameworks that might be applied to the arts, or that consider the role of the arts in relaying humanistic, historical, or other scholarly inquiries are welcome.
The application deadline is Monday, March 10. For complete details, visit www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/bca/arc_activity.htm or e-mail Michele Rabkin at micheler@berkeley.edu.
Director sought for institute on business and economics
The Institute of Business and Economic Research (IBER), an organized research unit, is seeking a new director, effective July 1. The search committee invites nominations of tenured Berkeley faculty. Candidates should have a well-established research and professional reputation as well as leadership and administrative abilities.
The institute promotes research by Berkeley faculty and graduate students in which the tools of economics and related social sciences are brought to bear on important issues of our world. Many institute projects are traditionally associated with economics, but IBER researchers also use economic tools to investigate problems of health and health care, decision-making, organizational responses to disasters, or the economic effects of an aging population.
Nominations or inquiries should be directed to Severin Borenstein, chair of the search committee, at borenste@haas.berkeley.edu no later than Feb. 29. Self-nominations are welcome.
Further information about IBER can be found at iber.berkeley.edu.
Read the tea leaves March 1 at Hearst Museum event
"World in a Teacup: Tracing the Global Journey of Tea," a March 1 symposium and tasting event hosted by the Hearst Museum of Anthropology, will complement a new museum exhibit about the world's most commonly consumed beverage. The program is part of an ongoing series of public events at the museum that examine the culture of food.
Symposium participants will include Eliot Jordan, director of tea for Peet's Coffee & Tea; Winnie Yu, tea buyer and owner of Teance; Gregory Levine, associate professor of Japanese art, who will talk about Japanese Zen art and Japanese tea ceremonies; and Erika Rappaport, a cultural historian at UC Santa Barbara, talking about her research on the history of tea advertising and tea consumption in Victorian England.
The symposium will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 1, at the Bancroft Hotel, 2680 Bancroft Way; the vendor/tasting event follows at the Hearst Museum, on Kroeber Hall's first floor, from 3 to 5 p.m., as does a curator's talk about the exhibit, which will begin at 4 p.m.
Tickets, which include admission to the symposium and the vendor event, are $18 for museum members and Berkeley faculty, staff, and students, and $20 for the general public. For tickets, contact Akiko Minaga at 643-7649 or contact pahma-programs@berkeley.edu.
Catch a replay of TV segment on Cal's first gay fraternity
The Bay Sunday program on KPIX-TV, Channel 5, recently featured a segment on Sigma Epsilon Omega, Berkeley's first gay fraternity. Nearing its first anniversary on campus, the frat has 27 brothers and eight pledges so far this spring. Those who missed the broadcast, or would like to see it again, will find it archived at cbs5.com/video/?id=30717.